March 11 Meeting Report

 March has been a busy month for quilters.  I hope everyone was able to do something quilty last weekend, especially on March 15 when it was International Quilting Day.  I know many Tuesday Afternoon Quilters got to the PSQG Fleet Show, Little Quilts in Small Spaces.  

Our meeting on the 11th was a busy one, as usual.  We had a special visitor, Charlie the cat and she cooperated by posing for endless photos, some of which follow:

The I Spy workshop happened after coffee, lunch and Show and Tell but since the above pictures showed our work area I will mention that first.

March 11 was our second session at completing I Spy blocks for our first quilt and we now have all the blocks needed to complete one top.  They have all been pieced and squared off now so in our session on March 25 at Joyce's we should be able to lay out the top and get it pieced and ready for quilting.  We will be looking for volunteers to do the quilting and binding very soon.

We still have lots of I Spy blocks cut and sorted and I believe we decided that we would make a different pattern for our second I Spy.  We all liked the following two I Spy patterns which Nancy brought to show us so we will probably go with the Stacked Blocks one to use up all the blocks we have cut.  

Leng had lots of Show and Tell.  Here is some cross stitch she did when she was still hoping for a granddaughter.  

Leng made two and they could probably be incorporated into a quilt.

Leng also surprised us with a great little travel tote that converts to a back pack.

Here is a Youtube tutorial that is similar to Leng's

Here is another tutorial that Leng sent but she customized her bag to provide the storage that was useful to her.

This is a rag quilt that was made from a donation of flannelette squares already cut to size.  There were enough to make four of these quilts, two of which will be donated back to Heron's Nest for the toddlers in their program.  I made this one as a trial.  I used three layers of flannel without any batting.  It was quick and easy to make and the cutting wasn't too onerous or hard on my hands.  The other three bundles were taken by Nancy, Colleen and Sharon.  It's really great to be in a group with such hard workers!

We also had a large donation of flannelette in two different patterns that we can use for backing our baby and toddler quilts.

We were given approximately 10 meters and it is 60" wide so it will come in very useful.  They were donated to us by Debra DeGaust who makes knitted blankets for Project Linus.  They referred her to us when she was looking for a group that makes community quilts.